Tennis Competes in ITA All-American Championships Starting Saturday

MANHATTAN, Kansas. – The Kansas State women's tennis team will prepare to face off against some of the best players in the nation when the Wildcats head to Tulsa, Oklahoma to compete in the International Tennis Association (ITA) All-American Championships at the LaFortune Tennis Center, beginning Saturday, October 5.

A program-record four individuals – juniors Anna Turco, Margot Decker and Maria Linares, along with sophomore Karine-Marion Job – will compete in the singles portion of the ITA All-American Championship, while the quartet (pairings of Job and Linares and Decker and Turco) will also play in the doubles' competition.

Only Oklahoma State -- with five singles' competitors -- has more than K-State at the annual event.

"The (ITA) All-Americans is a prestigious event for us in tennis," said head coach Jordan Smith. "It's one of two major national individual tournaments that are played during the fall. The selection criteria is strict based off results from last season, which includes national ranking, regional rankings and votes from coaches. Last year, we were able to send two of our student-athletes. Having four of own selected shows that we've had multiple great singles and doubles performances within the team's success. Overall, it's a great opportunity to compete against some of the best tennis players in the country."

Each of the four will begin the week in the pre-qualifying singles' bracket, a 96-player field that is divided into 12 sections of eight players. Each section winner will advance to the 64-player qualifying singles bracket, which will feed 16 winners into the main draw.

This will be the first competition for Decker, Linares and Turco, while Job earned a pair of singles' victories at the Marliss Gruver Invitational on September 20-22 en route to a seventh-place finish in the Flight A Bracket.

"This is the first tournament of the fall for three (Decker, Linares and Turco) of them," said Smith. "I expect the energy to be high with some nerves, of course. If they come out building on our themes from this fall then I can see it being a successful trip for us."

Linares and Decker are the only two players to have previously competed in the ITA All-America Championships with Decker playing in 2017 and 2018 and Linares in 2018. Decker is 1-2 all-time in the event, while Linares was forced to retire to Pepperdine's Adrijana Lekaj, trailing 1-6, 0-3, in her first appearance last season. The pair lost their doubles' match to Texas' Marta Perez-Mur and Tijana Spasojevic, 8-6.

A native of Maracay, Venezuela, Linares was recently ranked at No. 106 on the ITA's Top 125 singles' list. She posted a 14-12 singles record in 2018-19, including a 10-9 mark at the top two spots in the lineup. She was the 2018 Big 12 Freshman of the Year and the All-Big 12 Second Team selection after posting a 20-10 singles' mark.

The native of Blodelsheim, France, Decker went 12-17 in singles play, including a 9-12 dual spring mark, as a sophomore in 2018-19. She earned All-Big 12 Second Team honors as a freshman in 2017-18 after posting a 16-15 singles record, in which, she held down the No. 1 singles position during the spring season.

A junior from Mondovi, Italy, Turco collected All-Big 12 Second Team accolades as a sophomore in 2018-19 after leading the Wildcats with a 14-7 spring singles record. She produced a 20-10 overall singles record a season ago and worked her way to the top of the singles lineup by the end of the season.

Despite not joining the program until the spring season, Job, a sophomore from Lyon, France, posted a singles record of 14-8 in dual matches, earning Big 12 Newcomer of the Week on February 19.

A full bracket for the ITA All-American Championships will be available in the coming days at itatennis.com.

For the latest on K-State tennis follow @kstatesports and @KStateTEN on Twitter or Kansas State Tennis on Facebook.

Tennis Competes in ITA All-American Championships Starting Saturday

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Players Mentioned

Margot Decker

Karine-Marion Job

Maria Linares

Anna Turco

Kansas State University Athletics